In 1870, after having finished his studies in his native town, Korolenko entered the Technological Institute at St. Petersburg, where he spent two years in extreme poverty. He had to earn his living as well as he could, by giving lessons or doing copying. His mother could not help him at all, as she herself had to struggle against adversity. The following will show how sparingly he had to live in his youth: during his two years, he had a real substantial meal only about once in two months, and then in a restaurant run on philanthropic principles, where he paid only 30 copecks (about 30 cents). His regular meals consisted of bread, tea, sausage and potatoes. But this was an epoch in which living was cheap: the wave of democracy was spreading, and the "intellectuals" were trying to get into closer touch with the people. The movement was so powerful that many of the younger generation who could have done other things took up this work; others, on principle, married humble peasants. In 1872 Korolenko left for Moscow, and there entered the Academy of Agriculture. He was expelled after two years and sent to Kronstadt for having taken part in student manifestations. Several years later, we find him again in St. Petersburg without a permanent position; he was employed as a reader in a publishing house, and was also attempting to do some writing. His first efforts took the form of a series of sketches, published under the title, "Episodes in the Life of a Seeker." He was at this time accused of being too much inspired by the scenes of sadness and injustice of which he had been a witness. In 1879 he was imprisoned and then deported to Viatka. He remained there a year. Thence he was sent to the miserable town of Kama, and a few months later to Tomsk, where he learned that they wanted to exile him to Siberia. In a letter, published by a newspaper, he eloquently protested against the persecutions of which he was the unhappy victim. His protestation was answered by his transfer to the frozen region of the province of Yakutsk in Eastern Siberia! He passed three years in the midst of the "taiga," the immense virgin forest which covers this country, in a village of nomads whose miserable huts, very low and smoky, were scattered along the shores of the Aldane. Here he wrote several stories, and the "Dream of Makar," which was published two years later, and greatly praised by the critics for its originality and its setting. The dreary country around Yakutsk and the life that is lived there made such a profound impression on the young man that even to-day he speaks of that time with real emotion.
"My hut was at the extreme end of the town. During the short day one could see the small plain, the mountains which surrounded it, and the fires in the other huts, in which lived people who were either descended from Russian colonists or deported Tartars. But in the morning and evening a cold grey mist covered everything so thickly that one could not see a foot ahead.
"My little hut was like a lost island in a boundless ocean. Not a sound about me.... The minutes, the hours passed, and insensibly the fatal moment approached when the 'cursed land' pierced me with the hostility of its freezing cold and its terrible shadows, when the high mountains covered with black forests rose menacingly before me, the endless steppes, all lying between me and my country and all that was dear to me.... Then came the terrible sadness ... which, in the depths of your heart, suddenly lifts up its sinister head, and in the terrible silence among the shadows murmurs these words: 'This is the end of you ... the very end ... you will remain in this tomb till you die....'
"A low and caressing whine brought me out of my heavy stupor: it was my friend, Cerberus, my intelligent and faithful dog, who had been placed as a sentinel near the door. Chilled through and through, he was asking me what was the matter and why, in such terribly cold weather, I did not have a fire.
"Whenever I felt that I was going to be beaten in my struggle with silence and the shadows, I turned to this wholesome expedient,—a large fire."
In 1885, Korolenko, having returned from Siberia, went to Nizhny-Novgorod, and in a relatively short space of time wrote a series of stories which, two years later, were collected in book form. Afterward, he became the editor of the celebrated St. Petersburg review, the "Russkoe Bogatsvo,"—a position which he still holds.
In all of Korolenko's works we distinctly feel the living breath that inspires the artist, and the ardor of a fervent ideal. His god is man; his ideal, humanity; his "leitmotiv," the poetry of human suffering. This intimate connection with all that is human is to be found in his psychological analysis as well as in his descriptions of natural phenomena. Both God and nature are in turn spiritualized and humanized. Korolenko looks at life from a human standpoint; the world which he describes is made up wholly of men and exists for them only. He has a very clear philosophy, and a conscience aware of the duties it has to perform. If he has not opened up hitherto unknown paths, nor made new roads, he has himself nevertheless passed through terrible experiences; he has been a prey to profound sorrows and doubts, and in spite of all, he has kept his love for the people intact, and deeply pities their ignorance and abasement. His work constantly recalls to our minds the theory that the cultivated classes are in debt to the people for the education which they have received at the people's expense. This is the great moral principle which governs the conscience of the Russian "intellectuals." It is in this sense then, that Korolenko may be said to continue the literature of 1870, and to be the successor of Zlatovratsky and Uspensky. But he has reincarnated this past in new forms, which naturally result from the activity of his far-sighted, powerful intelligence. We do not find in his work either the nervousness, often sickly, which pervades the works of Uspensky, or the optimism of Zlatovratsky, which often excessively idealizes the life of the Russian peasant, who is the principal hero of all his works. Korolenko, because he puts a high value on human personality, perfectly appreciates the terrible struggle that man has to make in order to secure his rights. A desire for justice on the one hand, and a defence of man's dignity on the other, form the very essence of the talent of this author, and it is with these feelings that he observes the people on whom injustice weighs most heavily and who have merely remnants of human dignity left in their make-up,—for in general, these people are not those whom fate has overcome. Most of them lead a hard and gloomy life beset with misfortunes. Many of them are vagabonds, escaped convicts, drunkards, murderers, who are bowed down with misery, and have no wish except to escape the mortal dangers of the Siberian forests and marshes. On opening any of Korolenko's books we find ourselves, to use his own words, in "bad company." He does not flatter his heroes, he does not make gentlemen of them; they are not even men, but rather human rubbish.
"Because I knew a lot about the world," he writes, "I knew that there were people who had lost every vestige of humanity. I knew that they were corroded with vice and sunk deep in debauchery, in which they lived contented. But when the recollection of these beings surged through my mind, enveloped in the mists of the past, I saw nothing but a terrible tragedy, and felt only an inexpressible sorrow...."
This author does not give any judgment on life; he does not condemn it and does not nourish a preconceived spite against it, but his sad heart overflows with pity, and, if he approaches this life, it is with the balm of love, in order to try to dress its terrible wounds.